CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

The Chinese officer was wearing the spun clothing of the soldiers. The pants and well-made boots. The long crimson jacket. The helmet. The officer carried a sword. The Chinese troops that met their wagon in front of the gate pointed rifles, long like Escondido’s, at Raleigh and the Boy and the wagon full of corpses from atop the cut-log palisades.

What remained of an old overpass straddled the Eighty and served as the gateway to the Chinese colony of Auburn. High walls of cut forest pine screened the outpost along the southern side of the highway, surrounding the old historic district of the city from Before. Out of the center of the outpost, a domed county courthouse rose above the walls, and what lay within was beyond the Boy to see and to know.

Raleigh explained to the Chinese officers the character of the bodies and the Boy could not follow their wide-ranging discussion because it was in Chinese.

In time, more Chinese, older, fatter, dressed similarly to the officer, came out from behind the gate—even a few civilians. The Boy remained in the wagon.

All of his gear was gone.

His tomahawk.

His knife.

His bearskin cloak.

“If they see you’re weak, they won’t think much of us,” Raleigh said when he’d told the Boy to leave his gear with Horse and the other Hard Men.

So he’d left his bearskin and weapons and Horse.

“You can trust us,” said a smiling Dunn as he patted a jittery Horse, as if to reassure and unable to, all at once.

Raleigh turned back to the Boy in the middle of the conversation with the Chinese.

“They might make us sleep out here tonight.”

That would be bad for the plan.

“I told ’em, ain’t no way I was giving them the bodies without them paying me my bounty,” said Raleigh, more for show, as if they might just be gone in the morning.

I don’t know how this plays out for me, either way, Sergeant.

Be ready, Boy.

The Boy affected disinterest, which he knew was what Raleigh wanted him to show—that he was stupid and nothing to be afraid of.

The Boy stared off at the high wall and was surprised to see Escondido watching him.

When Raleigh turned back to the heated negotiation, the Boy looked up again at Escondido and barely passed one finger in front of his lip, almost as if he hadn’t, but for anyone looking for such a message, the meaning was clear.

A moment later, the officers were retreating into the gate and Raleigh was climbing back aboard with a groan and a sly smile only the Boy could see.

“We’re in,” he whispered through the side of his mouth.

“They want a good look at them bodies. Chinese love their intel. Figure they’ll know who’s in charge this week and who they can bribe or play off against someone else next week. Won’t matter much after tomorrow morning anyhow.”

They drove through the gates and down the highway a bit before being directed up onto an off-ramp and into the center of the town.

They passed buildings.

A man worked at a forge, beating metal.

A shopkeeper with a patchwork lion skin in his front window nodded. Women crossed the street and entered the shop, talking loudly.

As they descended into the center of town from the highway, the soft glow of lights behind shop windows and houses came to life, blooming in the cool of the early spring evening.

A gang of children dashed down a side street, screaming in the twilight as they laughed and ran.

The Boy smelled spicy food.

But the hunger that had always been with him was dulled by what he saw.

The Chinese lived side by side with the people of other races. There were whites, browns, blacks, and Chinese.

The town murmured with life.

Like a city once must have.

The Boy thought of MacRaven’s lunatic army of savage tribes moving through the thick forest east of the outpost.

He thought of MacRaven in armor.

He thought of the skeletons that were once cities.

He thought of Sergeant Presley’s word. “Involved.”

He waited for Sergeant Presley to tell him what to do now.

But he sensed the voice, like himself, had been silenced by the unfolding of life within the pine walls of this outpost.

Civilization.

Like Before.

Am I involved now?

And then …

Who am I?