California(83)

“I’m sorry,” Anika replied. “Sometimes…it’s too much.”

“Were they hurt by the Pirates?”

“No, not physically. But they were just as afraid as we were, if not more so.”

Frida kept her voice gentle. “Tell me about the children. You have to.”

All but three had been born here; the oldest, Melissa, was twelve and had come with her parents. The girl remembered her life before: the crime, the hunger, how the city had been promised paved roads, schoolbooks, medicine, but they never arrived. She was five when her parents decided to follow some old friends out here. “They’d come from Merced, so you can imagine.”

In the bowl, the dough was rising. Frida imagined it inflating like lungs.

“A few babies died,” Anika said. “And we lost one woman to childbirth. That was in the beginning, before we had a handle on agriculture, when our nutrition was poor. I mean, our nutrition was never great, but in the beginning, it was the worst. If a pregnant woman doesn’t get enough protein, she’s at risk of hemorrhaging when she gives birth.” Anika sighed. “It’s harsh out here, for anyone. But for a kid? Melissa had been sick with the flu for days when Micah showed up.”

Her brother. This was where the story changed.

“Melissa,” Anika said, “she—”

“What happened when my brother got here?”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“He arrived in the carriage one evening, right after dark. With August and a handful of other men: Burke, Sailor, Dave. None of the others yet—they would come later. Three weeks earlier, before sunrise, a group of Pirates had come.”

The Pirates had raided their reserves of food. They’d tied a red flag to the steeple as a warning, but no one saw it until afterward. “Almost all of us were still asleep when they rode up. I was awake, just about to head with Ogden to the river to do laundry. I had him strapped to my chest, and it was cold, so my hands were wrapped in scarves, to keep them warm. I don’t know why I remember that. I never do that now, haven’t since that morning.

“As soon as I heard their horses’ hooves pounding against the ground, I screamed until my voice went hoarse, my hands over Ogden’s ears. He started crying but miraculously stopped a moment later, as if he knew not to draw attention to himself.

“This time, the man with the scaly arms, the long-haired one, wasn’t there. A new Pirate was in charge. He was young, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and very tall. I remember thinking he was taller than any of the men on the Land. It looked like he’d tried to grow a mustache, but it didn’t take, it was just a bunch of dark scraggly threads. Not that it mattered, he was in charge, all the others followed his orders. There was something horrible and unfeeling about him, and I knew right away that things were going to be worse for us now that he was running the show. He trained his gun on me as his men pulled the others out of the Hotel and lined them up. One of the women tried to run, and she got clocked in the face.”

Frida shuddered. “What did they take this time?”

“What they took doesn’t matter,” Anika said. “It’s who.”

“Another woman?”

Anika shook her head. “The Pirate, the one who was now in charge, he got off his horse and walked down the line of us. He was wearing old black basketball sneakers, the toes mended with duct tape. I kept my eyes on the shoes as they moved from person to person. Even the kids knew to be still. It was quiet except for the wind, which was blowing pretty hard. Some door was slapping open and closed.”

Frida said nothing.

“Randy was eleven years old then, big for his age. He was the second-oldest kid and had been born in L.A. We sometimes joked that someday he and Melissa would get married.”

Anika smiled, but for only a moment.

“When the Pirate got to him, he stopped. Randy’s father was one of the first men killed by the Pirates, and, I don’t know, maybe that marked him. I remember Deborah, Randy’s mother, was farther down the line. When the Pirate nodded at Randy and pulled him out of line, Deborah saw what was happening and screamed. The babies started crying—but not Ogden, though. I remember whispering to him that we’d be all right. But, really, I was so scared.

“When a few of our men tried to step in and stop what was happening, they were shoved to the ground. Deborah ran toward her son, but one of the other Pirates tackled her. She would’ve let them kill her, except her son got right on the Pirate’s horse, as instructed. The boy didn’t say anything. Maybe he already knew what it all meant, that he was being recruited into their terrible army. And maybe his silence was what kept the rest of us in line. Randy was looking down at the horse, as if he’d never touched a saddle. It was like he was being sacrificed for our safety, and he’d accepted it.”

“He just let them take him?”

Anika didn’t answer.

“Anika?”

“We told Deborah that Randy was a hero for giving himself up like that, for the good of all of us. What else could we have said?

“We’d been so terrorized, that when Micah and the others showed up three weeks later, we were afraid. I came running at them with the scythe, screaming once more. They could slice out my vocal cords if they wanted to, I didn’t care. Micah held up his hands in surrender, and I was caught off guard. He had a pear in his hand. A peace offering.”