The Hill of the Ravens Read online

  Cindy came back into the kitchen wearing a skirt and sweater and without asking piled steaming potatoes au gratin into a large bowl for the dinner table. “Hi, princess,” said Don to his daughter. “Look, honey, got a moment? Can you step into the study? I’d like to talk to you. I reckon you know what about.”

  “Sure, Dad,” said the girl. “Been upstairs talking with Aunt Tori?”

  “Yes. She wants me to tell the reunion tonight that her lumbago’s acting up, which is horse hockey. She’ll outlive us all.” They went into Don’s den and sat down on the sofa together. “No bull now, Cindy. Mark Conway has formally asked our family for permission to marry you. I want to know how you feel about it.”

  “Actually, I was the one who asked him to marry me,” said Cindy with a smile. “Once when we were eight years old. Then again, seriously, a year ago, before he went into the army. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “That’s all I need to hear, princess. I’ll send my formal acceptance to Pastor Carlisle tomorrow. I’ll also call Mark at his unit up on the Yukon border and I’ll tell him the good news myself.” He leaned over and kissed her. “May the both of you know nothing but joy and fulfillment, all of your lives. Now, in view of your coming change of situation, I want you to be honest with me about everything. How can I help?” Don expected a calm and serious assessment of the young couple’s financial and material needs prior to their each receiving their Life Grants from the state. Those needs he was fully prepared to fulfill with all the resources at his command, including his father-in-law’s as well, for he knew he could speak for John Corbett on this. After all, this was Cindy, the practical and unsentimental one. It was her way.

  Cindy El rarely surprised him, but this time she managed it. “Dad, what was the old country like?”

  “Huh?” asked Don in surprise. “Cindy, why on earth would you ask me that now?”

  “I was just thinking about Mark and me today,” she told him. “I was wondering what our children will be like, what kind of world they will grow up in, wondering if my sons will have to fight another war to keep our country alive. Then I started wondering what it would have been like if you had stayed behind, what kind of life they would have had. Or even if they would be at all, or I would have been born at all. That, and you and Mom going to the reunion tonight reminded me how much we owe you. But I just got curious. All around me every day I meet and speak with new people, new settlers, and they all know where they came from. I guess like all us woodchucks who were born here I sometimes feel there’s something missing. I hear people speaking in German and Russian and Afrikaans, or in English with accents from England and Ireland and New Zealand and Massachusetts. It’s like they have something I don’t, in a way. So I wonder. What was our own land like, the land we lived in before we Came Home?”

  “Honey, I was only six years old when we left North Carolina. I have lived all my life since then here in the Homeland. Never wanted to be anywhere else.”

  “But surely you must remember something?” pressed Cindy. “I hear a little of it in your voice sometimes, a passing reference to this or that.”

  “That’s mostly from growing up around Uncle Matt and from your grandfather,” pointed out Don. “I picked up some of their speech patterns second hand. I’m not really a Carolinian.”

  “I know. I wish I had known Uncle Matt.”

  “So do I, princess. Matt and Heather both. You missed something there.”

  “It’s almost like North Carolina is a ghost that follows us everywhere. Someone once called us a haunted people. Haunted by our past, haunted by the many lands we came from. I want to know our family ghosts, Dad, so I can tell my own children about them someday. Our own land, the land long ago…what was it like? Can you tell me anything?”

  “Well, yeah, I remember a little. I dream about it sometimes,” said Redmond slowly. “Just hazy images mostly, the kind a person of my age retains from their early childhood. Not much, and what there is doesn’t hang together very coherently. There are some bad memories, like gangs of ugly black children with big bubble lips and nappy frizzy heads chasing me and beating me with sticks, throwing rocks at me if I came out of my yard, that kind of thing. But there are good memories as well. Sometimes I dream about the summer, the muggy burning heat of a kind that we never get here, or at least we never get here on the South Sound. I dream about air conditioners rumbling in windows, dripping water from the condensation. I remember green and leafy trees, kind of the same as we have here, but different as well. The trees were smaller than here but with bigger leaves, and the Carolina pines are different from our firs and cedars. I know that because I’ve seen photos, but I remember it too. At least, I think I do. Taller, straighter, and in my mind I see pine cones and brown pine needles like a carpet on the ground everywhere. Soft dirt, softer than here, darker. And sometimes sand. I remember going to a place once that my parents called Cliffs of the Neuse, which is a river in Carolina. I remember there were big tall pine trees growing up there out of hard white sand. I remember looking down on the water and it was kind of muddy greenish brown, not like the blue of the Sound here. I remember going to places with old cannons, Fort Fisher and Bentonville. They were Civil War battlefields where Southern soldiers fought against the United States, very long ago in the first time when our people revolted against the Americans. Later ZOG had all those sites plowed under and all the relics were destroyed, and it became against the law even to speak of that time or to honor any of our ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Display of any Confederate flag or insignia still carries ten years’ Federal prison time now, if I recall correctly.

  “But mostly I remember autumn in Carolina. The trees blazing with gold and red and brown, the air clear and chill. I remember a Halloween or two, Jack o’Lanterns on porches and beautiful golden leaves on the ground. You want to know what I most recall about the old country, honey? I remember the Halloweens. My brother and my sister and I used to go trick or treating. My Uncle Matt took us all, with his gun worn outside on his hip. He was a North Carolina state cop then, and he was one of the few white men who were still allowed to carry a weapon after the Schumer Act. He went with us so none of the black kids messed with us or stole our candy. Yeah, I’d have to say it was Halloween I remember best. There was just something different in the air than here, maybe because we were closer to the real Old Country, the Europe that our ancestors came from in those tiny wooden ships. My Christmases? Those are all here, Cindy El and thanks to Matt and Heather they were all good ones. I guess that’s the best way I can explain it. Halloween means the old country to me, but Christmas means the Homeland. I hope that makes some kind of sense to you.”

  “And your father and your mother? My grandparents?” asked Cindy.

  “I actually can’t remember that much about them, which I suppose is something I ought to feel badly about, but in my mind they are always kind of overshadowed by images of Matt and Heather. I wasn’t with them when they were killed, thank God,” said Don. “It happened in the state capital, Raleigh, what they called a carjacking in those days. A Mexican gang specialized in stealing late model cars and shipping them to South America. Rather than take the time to break in and maybe damage the merchandise they simply waited for a nice car driven by white people to pull up to a stoplight or park, then dragged them out, killed them, and drove off with the car. It happened all the time in those days. I remember my Uncle Matt and my Aunt Heather coming to our house and asking us, my brother and sister and me, if we’d like to go on a long trip. I didn’t know it, but they were actually taking us away for good, one step ahead of the Child Protective Services. This was before It Takes A Village, but the government was already using the law to kidnap white children and give them to liberals and…well, to other kinds of people. The courts had declared Matt and Heather to be unfit guardians because of Matt’s so-called history of anti-government activities, which involved his job as a state police officer. He had this funny idea that the law applied to F
ederals as well, and back in the old days he rained on a number of Washington’s parades, so I understand. Plus there was that business with Bill Vitale. They never forgave him for that, especially Hillary. The Old Man wrote a book about it, which you may have read. Anyway, we kids were put on a train to Seattle with Aunt Heather. We couldn’t fly because we had to travel under false names. I do remember that long, long trip. I remember changing trains in this big huge station in Chicago where I ate a messy hot dog while sitting on a hard bench and slopped chili all over my shirt and pants, while about a hundred radios all around seemed to be shrieking out Mexican salsa music. I remember seeing the Rockies coming up ahead in the train’s observation car, capped with snow, and my first sight of blue lakes in Montana. Heather took us to her uncle, Oscar Lindstrom, and he hid us in his cabin out near Yelm for a year or so until Matt and Heather were able to Come Home themselves.”

  “Will we ever be able to go back?” asked Cindy softly.

  “Why? Do you want to go back?” asked Don in surprise. “I mean, it’s not a bad thing if you do. A lot of people here believe they will go back some day, to the lands of their birth. Everywhere from Germany to Milwaukee to South Africa. I think all of us want to go back, at least a little.”

  “Mmm, not for good, I don’t think. I was born here. My home is the Northwest and it always will be. But it just makes me mad that the Americans won’t give us entry visas, won’t even let us go back to visit. Like we’re contaminated or something.”

  “To them, we are contaminated,” said her father. “We are contaminated with two things they fear more than anything. Courage and racial pride. They spent seventy years stamping courage and pride out of our people, and yet despite it all here we are in the Northwest, springing back up again like weeds.”

  “I’d just like to see Carolina someday,” she said wistfully. “Someday, yes, I think we’ll be able to go back,” said Don.

  “Not in my lifetime, but maybe in yours. I’d say pretty certainly that your children will be able to go back someday if they want. Honey, you know that the Homeland was never intended to be a prison for us. It’s a lifeboat, a place of refuge. One day the men and women of our race will grow strong and brave again, and more importantly, we will grow many. There will be enough of us so that we can kick down the walls they’ve built around us and take it all back, the America and the Canada that our forefathers made. Speaking of those children you mentioned…Cindy, before God, are you sure you want Mark Conway to be their father? Honey, I won’t pressure you or try to force you. When all is said and done, this is your decision.”

  “Yes, Dad. I’ve known Mark was the one since I was a child, Dad, and Mark knew the same about me. Just like you knew Mom was the one, and she told me she knew you. I just had it a lot easier than you did. You two had to meet and recognize one another in a bad time of fear and violence and sickness. I didn’t have to go through that. You and Mom and Papa John and Aunt Tori made a world where it was possible for Mark and me to come together without fear or guilt or confusion, where young white people aren’t driven half insane by what’s happening around them. I know enough history to understand that.”

  “Don’t ever forget it, Cindy El. Because if you do, you and your children will be forced to repeat it. Now let’s get in to supper before the smell of that crackling pork drives me nuts.”

  After dinner, while his wife was dressing for the reunion, Don went into the library and pulled out his comphone. He called his old friend Charlie Randall. When Randall’s mug appeared on the screen it turned out to be a kindly, grandfatherly face, weatherbeaten with a shock of gray hair. It was definitely not the face one would expect of one of the Republic’s foremost intelligence operatives and assassins, with a record of happy homicide going back to the War of Independence.

  “G’day, mate!” said Randall, his speech purest Brisbane. “Long time no jabber. Been meaning to give you a bell and offer my congrats on catching the bloody Bill Vitale clone and busting those nutters who wanted to waste Pastor Briggs.”

  “Hey, cobber,” said Don. “Thanks, but it’s all in a day’s work. It could be worse. I could be mowing lawns for the Labor Service. Look, Charlie, something’s come up. I need to have a word with you regarding a new case I’m working on. It’s nothing of immediate urgency or any imminent threat to state security, just some background on the old days. You going to be at the Association shindig tonight?”

  “Be there with bells on,” agreed Randall. “Wouldn’t want to miss a chance to dance with that lovely wife of yours.”

  “Long as I get a dance with Linda. Let’s try to make some time for a jaw-jack, then.”

  * * *

  At a little past eight o’clock, Don and Sarah arrived at the downtown Olympia Hilton for the annual social of the Old NVA Association. The Redmonds always made it a point to show up for the annual reunions. They were a renowned couple since between them both, they were the youngest veterans who were entitled to wear the War of Independence ribbon. As they walked in, almost as if by arrangement, the loudspeakers struck up Sir William Walton’s Crown Imperial March. The walls were festooned with Tricolor flags and long green, white and blue ribbons. Over the great banquet room, crowded with people and Labor Service waiters, heavy with the smell of good food and tobacco smoke, hung a heavy silk banner of blue, lettered in white. It was the one that the Western Washington chapter of the Old NVA Association hung out at every one of their social and political functions. On the banner was emblazoned the immortal passage from William Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth:

  This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.

  He that outlives this day and comes safe home Will stand a-tip-toe when this day is named And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

  He that shall live this day and see old age, Will yearly on this day feast his neighbours,

  And say, Tomorrow is St. Crispian.

  Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.

  Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day, Then shall our names.

  Familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

  Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

  From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d;

  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. Be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition.

  And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!

  There was a scattering of applause as the Redmonds entered the room and were recognized. “Hey, Don!” came the chorus of greetings from a dozen people at the bar. “Hey Sarah! Lookin’ good, Sarah! How’s the Carolina Kid?”

  “Getting old, boys,” replied Don merrily. “Almost as old as some of you relics! This time next year we’ll all have creaking joints!”

  “Hey, you young whippersnapper, I might remind you that this particular old relic done out-shot your ass by thirty points on the police range last August!” yelled the retired head of the Republic’s steel production corporation, who was also the head of the NAR’s state rifle team. Without asking he thrust a huge stone tankard of Bavarian pattern into Don’s hand, brimming with frothing ale from the Red Hook brewery. Lemuel Harris had been born in Alabama. He had come to the Northwest as a fugitive from American justice for the crime of defending his life on a dark night in Mobile against a crazed drug addict. His sentence had been seven years state time for the killing itself and thirty years Federal without parole for the racist crime of being a man with a white skin who raised his hand against a man with a black skin. Harris broke out of a prison bus and walked three thousan
d miles, mostly at night, until he reached the Homeland, eating out of dumpsters and killing four police officers along the way who tried to apprehend him. Some years before the business correspondent of the Times of London had interviewed him and asked him about that trek. Harris replied, “I killed when I had to, but I never stole a single dime or so much as a mouthful of food from anyone along the way.”

  “Might another of us superannuated old relics impose on your lovely lady for the first dance after dinner?” asked another elderly gentleman, with a courtly bow towards Sarah. The left sleeve of his flawless black evening dress suit was empty, pinned back against his side. By old custom for these functions he had left his perfectly functioning prosthetic limb at home this evening, for tonight the wounds of the past were acknowledged and displayed for the world to see. Zack McAllister’s arm had been blown off during the Kennewick Flying Column’s attack on the fortified FATPO barracks in Yakima, when he had picked up a grenade and tried to throw it back at the Federals. It exploded in his hand. A nineteen year-old student paramedic had amputated and cauterized the bleeding stump, without anesthetic, in the back of a van while the FATPO patrols swarmed outside. A single outcry would have given away their position. The wounded man had never uttered a sound. The paramedic was now the mayor of Coos Bay, Oregon and was no doubt attending his own NVA reunion this evening.

  “You’re going to have to fight Charlie Randall for her, Zack. You realize, of course, that this is what you get for being the youngest woman in the room,” chuckled Don to Sarah. “As well as the most beautiful.” He leaned over and kissed his wife quickly and affectionately. Someone overheard him.