But those weren’t the items that usually drew her attention. She loved the obscure tents with things from the world before the Third World War: dishes made of glass and antique wooden furniture that had somehow survived those winters when people burned everything they could to stay warm. Once she’d seen a brass figure of a reindeer and asked the seller what it was used for.
“Just a decoration,” he told her.
She’d picked it up and held it cupped like a treasure. “A rich person must’ve owned it.”
He sniffed at her ignorance. “Back then, even poor people had money for decorations.” He took the reindeer from her hands and returned it to his table. “I should try to sell it the next time I go to the city. No one out in these parts has extra cash or credits.”
She had wanted to buy the reindeer then, just to prove that city folks weren’t the only ones who could afford luxuries, butinstead, she’d stared at the figure with a mixture of longing and defiance. She hadn’t been able to get all the items on her parents’ list, let alone barter for a figurine. And besides, she didn’t have room in her packs to lug around useless objects.
But one day, she told herself, one day she’d live in a city where she could have pretty and pointless decorations.
Her father wouldn’t want anything like that today. Whatever he expected them to find would be practical and boring. Something they couldn’t purchase at the farmer’s overpriced compound store. Probably some old textbook that talked about city water systems or military strategy.
Charity silently flipped through the pages of her novel and wished the government had actually fixed the roads like they kept claiming on their broadcasts. Her harvesting co-op had traveled up and down Missouri and Kansas for months and hardly come upon a smooth road.
After some time, Zia and Milo’s voices dropped, which had the opposite effect they intended—Charity’s interest was pulled away from Hercule Poirot to find out what they didn’t want her to hear.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” Zia said. “Your father lets other people go to New Salem but not his own family.”
Charity’s father was not just a simple harvest leader. He gathered people. Once he deemed them to have sufficiently sterling characters, he sent them to a settlement tucked back in the breakaway states. It was far away from any of the established cities and protected by a reservoir to keep it safe from raiders.
“He needs our help,” Milo said simply.
“But what about when we have children?”
Milo’s head whirled in her direction. “Is that happening soon?”
“No.” She nudged his leg. “If I was making an announcement, this isn’t how I’d tell you. I just meantsomeday.”
He returned his attention to the road. “We’ll worry about someday when it happens. We won’t be out wandering around here forever. Before long, New Salem will have enough people to operate and defend itself, and then we’ll join them.”
Before long.Charity’s parents had been saying that phrase for years. She’d stopped believing it.
Zia lifted her chin. “How many people does the place need? It’s already got over two thousand.”
“Quantity isn’t the only important thing,” Milo said. “We need skilled people.”
Their father had been assembling those for nearly two decades. His gift helped him locate and pluck engineers, doctors, architects, plumbers, mechanics, teachers—and even those rare finds—computer programmers and developers, people who usually just worked for the government.
Zia made a waving gesture with her hand. “Who else does he need?”
“People who can build factories are high on his list. And people with some heavy weaponry would be nice.”
Little chance of the last happening. A lot of people had handguns. Fewer had bullets for them. Raiders and soldiers were among that group, but those sorts weren’t willing to give up their piracy in the former case or their devotion to the government in the latter.
The family’s Glock, which Zia had on her lap—riding shotgun had become a literal term again—only had three bullets. So far, the family had just used the gun for laser cartridge target practice, not for actual defense. Not many vehicles traveled the roads, and most people weren’t looking for trouble.
The group came to a spot in the road so broken and pitted, it hardly seemed to exist. Milo slowed the Jeep to a stop and checked the GPS. It worked again and showed a straight line leading to a nearby destination. “This doesn’t seem right.”
Charity looked around at the oaks, hickories, and beech trees that competed for sunshine. Several cracked branches draped across the foliage as though a windstorm had come through and knocked them off. “We’re not lost, are we?” If they’d gotten too far off track, they could run out of fuel.
“We’re on the right road,” Milo said. “It just wasn’t this messed up the last time I came.”
He’d been to the Sedalia market a couple of times while the co-op was in the area harvesting apricots and berries, so he ought to recognize the way.
Off to their left, ridges of fresh dirt lay along the side of the road. Something had hit it hard enough to make a hole. So not a windstorm. An assault by someone with serious firepower. The market was too far away from the border for the damage to be the result of an attack from the breakaway states.
“Why would the government attack this market?” Charity asked. Politicians occasionally complained that trading posts didn’t pay their fair share of taxes. And granted, most of the deals were unrecorded unless an official happened to be at the market that day. But she’d never heard of soldiers attacking one.