The Survivors Read online

  “Who says I live outside the county?” Nat says.

  Miles glances around. To the side, a scrawny guy in clothes two sizes too big looks away.

  “I’m not at liberty to answer that,” the librarian says. She looks toward the scrawny guy, whose cover is blown.

  He swallows. “What she’s saying is you’re either local or you’re not,” the guy says to Miles’s mother. He stays back as if to keep an escape route open behind him.

  Nat gives him a glance as if he’s a passing fruit fly. Miles slips behind a row of tall bookshelves—the stacks—and glides up behind the guy. “You got a problem?” Miles says, making his voice low and weird.

  The guy flinches and turns to Miles, who puffs himself up as tall as he can. It gives him an inch on the little man.

  The guy’s eyes go to Miles’s wind-blown hair, his dusty red bandana. He swallows. “Not really,” he says.

  “Oh, there you are, son. I thought I’d lost you,” Miles’s mother says with very fake cheerfulness.

  “I wuz over dere readin’ the magazines,” Miles says. He makes his voice sound like he’s seriously abnormal.

  “Good,” she says. “Why don’t you go on back there and sit in a chair until I’m ready, all right?” She uses her talking-to-a-child voice.

  “All right, den,” Miles says.

  Nat turns back to the librarian; it takes his mother a second to find her groove again—but only a second. “Anyway, do you realize what you’re asking?”

  The librarian stares. “Yes. I’m asking for identification.”

  “The library is the last place in America where people should be asked for their ID,” Nat says. Her voice rises.

  Miles lingers nearby. He’s not at all sure where this is going.

  “Well, these are really not my instructions,” the librarian says. “The governor himself—”

  “Governor, schmovernor!” Nat says, rising from her chair to her full five feet two inches. “I know a few things about freedom of information. Just because we have an environmental crisis doesn’t mean we have to have a police state!”

  The librarian lets out a half hiccup sound; people all around stare, which doesn’t bother Nat. She can do confrontations.

  “You show me the rule where I have to show you my ID,” Nat continues, getting up in the librarian’s face. “I want to see it!”

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Is there some trouble here?” a stocky older man says. He’s a shaved-head dude wearing a tie. An in-charge kind of guy.

  “Yes, there is,” Nat says.

  “I only asked to see her identification,” the woman librarian explains to her boss.

  The tie guy pauses. “Technically, we really don’t need to do that,” he says to the librarian.

  The woman’s face begins to redden.

  “You’re thinking of our community first, which we all appreciate,” he says calmly, and pats her arm. “But we don’t need identification unless she wants to get a library card.”

  “She didn’t put down her last name,” the woman librarian says.

  The head librarian does not hesitate. “Our patron here—”

  “Natalie,” Miles’s mother says.

  “—is free to be just ‘Natalie,’” he continues. “We don’t need to know any more about her than that, and she is welcome to use the library and all its resources.”

  Miles is impressed. The librarian, behind his lame tie and bald head, is a tough guy. He hasn’t bought into the whole “Travelers” thing, the restricted-movements law.

  “We shouldn’t ignore government orders,” the woman librarian says, stiffening her back.

  “Of course we shouldn’t,” the older man says. “But the American public library takes its real direction from the United States Constitution, and all the rights and freedoms afforded therein.”

  This guy talks like a Founding Father—he should be wearing a white wig—and he’s Miles’s new hero.

  After the woman librarian huffs away, Nat goes back to work, and gawkers stop watching, but it’s not much of a victory. Later, on the way out of the library, Miles and his mother get more than their fair share of stares.

  “Could you dial it back just a little next time?” Miles murmurs to his mother as he unlocks the chain.

  “That was the last straw,” Nat says, getting her back up again. “Imagine! Having to show ID in a library!”

  “Yeah, well, the larger idea is not to call attention to ourselves.”

  She blinks and turns to him. “Says the son who ain’t right in the head. Where did that come from?”

  “It just … came,” Miles says, holding back a grin.

  “You scared even me!” his mother said.

  Miles kicks over the engine, and they climb aboard. “Hang on,” he says, and she does, tighter than ever.

  Their next stop is the walk-up Wells Fargo ATM. Miles stays to the side, out of range of the little video eyeball above the keypad. His mother steps up and does her thing. The machine hums and clicks, and spits out cash.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Miles says.

  “Worrying, you mean,” his mother says as she tucks away the cash.

  “We should stop using these machines,” Miles says.

  “I thought the idea was to save our stash at the cabin,” Nat says, throwing a leg over the rear of the Kawasaki.

  Bankers are not your friends. People learned that during the Depression. If there’s a chance to steal your money, they will. How do you think they got so much money in the first place? The best way is cash on the barrelhead. And never keep it all in one place.

  “Right,” Miles says. “But the more we use a cash card, the more they know we’re here.”

  “‘They.’ ‘Them,’” his mother says, mimicking his voice. “Using an ATM is not a crime.”

  “No,” Miles says, “but it leaves tracks. Electronic tracks. We’re supposed to be living in Wayzata, not here.”

  “There is no ‘here,’” Nat says, poking him playfully in the ribs as she gets on the bike. “We don’t even have an address.”

  Next stop is the grocery store on the south side of town. Miles chains the Kawasaki to a light pole and goes in with his mother, if only to get his fair share of doom and gloom. The grocery store—the biggest in town—has lots of empty shelves. COMING SOON! and SHIPMENT DELAYED stickers decorate the open spaces. Other shelves have cleverly arranged cans of corn and boxes of cereal to disguise the fact that the space is less than half full. But there is way more food here than there was in Minneapolis.

  An old man and his wife drift along the aisle, with a few scattered cans in the bottom of their grocery cart. “Never thought I’d see the day,” he mutters.

  “Yes, dear,” she says automatically.

  “You’d think we were in Russia,” he says.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “This is what happens when the Democrats take over,” he says.

  “You can’t blame Democrats for the volcanoes, dear,” she says pleasantly.

  The produce section is vacant except for red potatoes and some rubbery-looking cucumbers. LIMIT: TEN POUNDS POTATOES PER WEEK! MUST SHOW COUPON! a sign reads over the potatoes. Nat gestures, and Miles lifts a sack into their cart. In Dairy Products there is not a lot of milk but plenty of butter and cheese; in the meat section there is pork but very little beef.

  “I could go for a major steak,” Nat says, “a sixteen-ounce prime rib au jus.”

  “I thought you were a vegetarian,” Miles says. “You and Goat Girl.”

  “Sarah,” his mother says, then adds, “Hey, I’m only human. Just having a flashback to my unhealthy days as a carnivore.”

  “Some meat wouldn’t hurt you,” Miles said.

  “I think it actually might,” she says. “My stomach would freak.”

  “What else is on our list?” Miles says as they keep moving through the half-empty store.

  “Romaine lettuce. Strawberries. Kiwis. Mangoes. Peaches,” his mother says,
pretending to look at a list.

  “Yeah, right,” Miles says, and steers them toward the checkout.

  “Fresh produce is what I miss the most,” Nat says. “What I wouldn’t give for a big green salad with tomatoes.”

  “Next summer we’ll grow our own,” Miles said.

  His mother bites her lip and leans briefly against him. “With any luck, we’ll be home next summer,” she says, “and the sun will shine again. We’re gonna garden. We’re gonna downsize. We’re gonna totally change our lifestyle.”

  “You, garden?” Miles asks. “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious,” his mother says.

  He drapes one arm briefly over her shoulder and gives her a hug. Then he places their groceries—potatoes, a couple of onions, a few cucumbers, four cans of corn, and a bag of white rice—on the conveyor belt. Which is dead, of course. Like everything, electricity is rationed; coal-burning power plants have been shut down altogether, which is not the worst thing in the world.

  “Find everything you need?” the checkout clerk says cheerfully.

  “I guess,” Nat says with glance to Miles; he can barely keep from laughing as he slides the groceries forward.

  “How are you folks today?” a voice booms. It’s an overly friendly manager-type; he looks them up and down.

  “Just great, eh?” Nat says. She has mastered the northern Minnesota speech pattern, with a dash of Canadian thrown in.

  “Find everything you need?” he asks. It must be the required cheerful question.

  “Any news on fresh produce?” Nat asks. “When we might see some lettuce?”

  His toothy smile slips a bit. “I get my information from the government, same as you,” he says. “As our governor says, ‘Stay put and stay calm.’”

  “Just curious,” Nat says.

  “You folks have a nice day,” he says.

  Once outside, Miles looks over his shoulder at the hulking, big-box grocery store. “Stay put and trust the government—yeah, right,” he says.

  Natalie shrugs. “The government is not always the problem.”

  “If we had stayed put in the suburbs, we’d be really hungry by now—or maybe beaten up like that family down the street.”

  “You don’t know that!” Nat says sharply.

  “My point exactly,” Miles says.

  They stuff the groceries into his mother’s backpack and head toward home—with one more stop to make.

  Three miles west of town, Miles downshifts for an intersection and a ramshackle country store. Once a gas station, it’s now a flea market, used car lot, used everything place called Old But Gold. Dusty cars, many almost new, sit in rows, along with a lineup of racy-looking, late-model snowmobiles. Behind them are lines of sawhorse tables filled with junk: old lamps, tools, saws. A couple of large, scruffy guys sit in chairs out front, in the sun.

  “Be careful,” Nat says.

  “Hey, these are my peeps,” Miles says. “Butch and his dad, Albert.” He lowers his dusty bandana as he walks forward.

  “Howdy, Miles,” Albert says, and raises his chin once. His son, Butch, a younger but dustier version, nods as well. Miles has hung out here more than once; he likes to look over the old equipment and old tools. Talk to guys. Learn stuff that he’s never heard about in regular school or in his alternative school packets.

  “How’s biz today?” Miles asks.

  “Like tits on a boar,” the old man says. “Meaning, none. What can I do you for?”

  “My radiator is a little low,” Miles says with a nod toward his motorbike.

  “That so?” the old man says; he strokes his chin.

  “Yep,” Miles says. “You wouldn’t have some antifreeze?”

  “Antifreeze,” the father says with the same emphasis. He and Butch glance sideways at each other. “Might,” the old man says.

  “But it’s pricier all the time,” Butch adds.

  “Like how much?” Miles asks.

  “Today, twenty bucks a gallon,” Butch replies.

  “Ouch!” Miles says, then adds, “But what can you do?” He says it with a theatrical sigh—as if they’re all in this together.

  “Roll your bike up to the gate, and Butch will take it from there,” the old man says.

  Miles signals to his mother, who steps away from the Kawasaki. Miles rolls the motorbike forward, then hands it off to Butch, who unlocks a padlock on a heavy chain. “Wait outside,” he says, never fully turning his back to Miles.

  “Sure,” Miles says cheerfully, and goes to hang out with Nat. They look over the snowmobiles. Behind the board fence there is clattering—then the clank of a nozzle on a gas tank rim.

  “Nice day anyway,” Butch’s dad says, glancing up at the pale sky.

  On the way home, Nat is on her high horse again. “Twenty bucks for one gallon of gas! That’s highway robbery—literally.”

  “We’re lucky we can get it at all,” Miles says.

  Suddenly, Miles stares intently ahead. Orange traffic cones line the highway, and two sheriff’s cars grow from the haze. Their noses are toed in toward the centerline—a funnel-like traffic stop. Two big pickups are paused; an officer is looking at one driver’s license while another is holding a short hose and a siphon. A third officer waves a dusty car with a Blue Star sticker past the checkpoint.

  “What is this?” his mother calls over Miles’s shoulder with alarm. “It’s not one of those ‘locals only’ things?”

  “No. We’re fine. Just be cool,” Miles says. He slows into first gear as he approaches the law enforcement cars. A deputy waves them forward into the neck of the funnel, all the while giving the motorbike a close look.

  “Don’t say anything!” Miles murmurs, and pulls over an instant before the deputy holds up his hand.

  “Hey, officer,” Miles says cheerfully.

  “Howdy.”

  “Everything okay today?” Miles asks.

  “No real problems. Just checking for off-road diesel.”

  They glance toward the guy standing beside his big Dodge pickup; he doesn’t look happy. “No diesel fuel here,” Miles says, and raps the little tank below the seat.

  “You live nearby?” the deputy asks.

  Miles feels his mother tense up. “Yeah. Just off County Road 7. We’re makin’ our weekly grocery run.”

  “No lettuce again!” Nat says in a whiny voice.

  The deputy gives them one more look up and down; his gaze ends up on the Kawasaki. “Be careful on that thing. The dust on the highway gets greasy.”

  “Will do,” Miles says, and accelerates away.

  After a block he feels his mother turn to look behind, then back to the front. “Why did you stop?” she hisses.

  “He was going to wave us in,” Miles calls back to her, “so I wanted to make the first move. It’s like in poker: Whoever makes the first big move controls the game.”

  “My son, the poker player,” Nat mutters.

  Miles laughs and speeds along.

  “And what did he mean by ‘off-road’ diesel?” his mother asks.

  “It’s fuel that farmers get at a big discount for their tractors,” Miles replies. “Same fuel that any truck or car with a diesel motor can use, except that it has a red dye in it.”

  “So they were taking samples from those pickups and checking the color?”

  Miles nods. “And if it comes up red, you got some explaining to do.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” she asks as they motor along.

  Miles shrugs. “It’s sort of a guy thing.”

  “Well, enough with the guy stuff. Just get me home,” she says, and holds him tighter from behind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SARAH

  EVERY WEEKEND, IT’S HER TURN to lug buckets of water from the outside hand pump back to the cabin. She has slept in—it’s Saturday—but now has to work. “I think it’s Miles’s turn,” she says to her father.

  “No, honey. Saturday means it’s your turn,” her father says.<
br />
  Clanging the bucket loudly against the doorframe, Sarah heads outside to the well. Emily immediately starts to bounce around her pen and clack her front hooves high up on the boards.

  “I can’t play,” Sarah mutters. “Not now.” During her third trip with a full bucket, she looks up. Miles and her mother putta-put through the woods. Miles, a maniac for saving gas, kills the engine so that he coasts down the hill, dust flying, Nat hanging on tightly behind him.

  “Groceries. Mail call!” Miles shouts. He dismounts and slaps dust from his pants.

  “How’d it go?” Artie asks.

  Nat slips off her backpack and glances at Miles—who shrugs and grins. “Just your basic trip to the grocery store.”

  Nat lets out a long breath.

  Art narrows his eyes. “Did something happen?” he asks quickly.

  “Yeah, the volcanoes,” Miles says.

  “Here,” Nat adds, handing the heavy backpack to Sarah. “Put away the groceries. I really need to relax.”

  “I have to do everything around here!” Sarah groans.

  For Miles and her parents, Saturday and Sunday are no different from any other day. For Sarah, the weekend feels like a week. Time slows down. The cabin gets smaller and smaller, especially after sundown.

  That evening her mother reads and her father lightly but continually tap-taps his fingers as he reads music charts and listens to his headphones. Miles pores over Mr. Kurz’s logbooks. “Look, Sarah—he even kept track of how much per month he spent on tobacco.” Miles is so engrossed in the narrow ledgers that he actually calls her by her real name.

  “How interesting,” she says sarcastically. She glances briefly over Miles’s shoulder at the cramped handwriting, the tidy columns of numbers.

  “He smoked more in the winter,” Miles observes, “like twice as much.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Sarah mumbles, glancing around the cabin.

  “We’ll all be smoking by spring,” Nat says. It’s a joke, but no one laughs.

  “‘December 1949; one Christmas card, ten cents,’” Miles reads.

  “One Christmas card,” Artie says, looking over. “That’s sad.” He actually listens sometimes.