The Twelve (The Passage 2)

Past the dam and fuel depot and fence line, with its sentries waving them through and down, down into the valley they went, into the golden light of a July morning. The women, seated at the rear with the hampers and supplies, were gossiping and laughing among themselves; the children, after a fruitless attempt by one of the mothers-of course it would be Ali Dodd-to organize them into a rousing chorus of the Texas anthem, the only song everyone knew (Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty State! Texas, our Texas! So wonderful, so great!), had sorted themselves into various warring factions, the older girls whispering and giggling and elaborately ignoring the boys, the boys elaborately pretending not to care, the little ones bouncing on the benches and darting through the aisle to launch their various assaults; the men up front were sitting in their customary guarded silence, communicating only through the occasional exchange of a wry look or a single raised eyebrow: What have we gotten ourselves into? They were men of the fields, their hands thickened from work; hair shorn close, crescents of dirt under their nails, no beards. Vorhees withdrew his timepiece from his pocket and checked the hour: 7:05. Eleven hours until the siren, twelve for the last transport, thirteen until dark. Watch the clock. Know the location of the nearest hardbox. When in doubt, run. Words imprinted on his consciousness as indelibly as a childhood rhyme, or one of the sisters' prayers. Vorhees twisted in his seat to catch Dee's eye. She was balancing Siri on her lap, the little girl's nose pressed to the window to watch the passing world. Dee gave him a weary smile, made of words: Thank you. Siri had begun to bounce, pumping her knees with pleasure. The little girl pointed a chubby finger out the window, squealing with delight. Thank you for this.

And then, before they knew it, they'd arrived. Through the windshield of the transport, the fields of North Ag Complex leapt into view, its vast patchwork laid out below them like the squares of a motley quilt: corn and wheat, cotton and beans, rice and barley and oats. Fifteen thousand acres stitched together by a fretwork of dusty roads, and, at their edges, windbreaks of cottonwood and oak; the watchtowers and pump houses with their catch basins and nests of pipe and, dispersed at regular intervals, the hardboxes, marked by tall orange banners, hanging limply in the breathless air. Vorhees knew their locations cold, but when the corn was tall, you couldn't always find them quickly without the flags.

He rose and moved to the front, where Dee's brother, Nathan-everybody called him Cruk-was standing behind the driver. Vorhees was foreman, but it was Cruk, as the senior Domestic Security officer, who was really in charge.

"Looks like we've got a good day for this," Vorhees said.

Cruk shrugged but said nothing. Like the field hands, he was dressed in whatever he had: patched jeans and a khaki shirt frayed at the collar and wrists. Atop this he wore a plastic vest, bright orange, with the words TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORATION printed on the back. He was holding his rifle, a long-barreled .30-06 with a sniper scope, across his chest; a reconditioned .45 was holstered to his thigh. The rifle was standard issue, but the .45 was something special, old military or maybe police, with an oiled black finish and a polished wood grip. He even had a name for it; he called it Abigail. You had to know somebody to get a weapon like that, and Vorhees didn't have to think too hard to figure out who this person might be; it was pretty much common knowledge that Tifty was on the trade. Vorhees's .38, with its paltry three rounds, felt meager in comparison, but there was no way he could have afforded a weapon like that.

"You can always say it was Dee's idea," Cruk said.

"So you don't think this is smart."

His brother-in-law gave a stifled laugh. It was at such moments that Cruk's resemblance to his sister was the most striking, though it was also true that this was more suggestion than actual physical similarity, and something only Vorhees would have noticed. Most people, in fact, remarked on how different the two of them looked.

"Doesn't matter what I think. You know that as well as I do. Dee sets her mind to something, you might as well just hang up your balls and call it a day."

The bus gave a bone-jarring bang; Vorhees fought to stay upright. Behind them, the children shrieked with happiness.

"Hey, Dar," Cruk said, "you think maybe you can miss some of those?"

The old woman at the wheel responded with a wet harrumph; telling Dar what to do with her bus was tantamount to an act of war. All the transport drivers were older women, usually widows; there was no rule about this-it was just how things were done. With a face ossified into a permanent scowl, Dar was a figure of legendary cantankerousness, as no-nonsense a woman as ever walked the earth. She kept time with a stopwatch hung around her neck and would leave you standing in a cloud of dust if you were so much as one minute late for the last transport. More than one field hand had spent a night in a hardbox scared out of his wits, counting the minutes till dawn.

"A busload of kids, for Christ's sake. I can barely think with all this noise." Dar shot her eyes to the pitted mirror above the windshield. "For the love of it, pipe down back there! Duncan Withers, you get down off that bench this instant! And don't think I can't see you, Jules Francis! That's right," she warned with an icy glare, "I'm talking to you, young lady. You can wipe that smirk off your face right now."

Everyone fell abruptly silent, even the wives. But when Dar returned her eyes to the road, Vorhees realized her anger was false; it was all the woman could do not to break out laughing.

Cruk clapped a big hand on his shoulder. "Relax, Vor. Just let everyone enjoy the day."

"Did I say I was worried?"

Cruk's expression sobered. "Look, I know you'd rather Tifty wasn't coming along. Okay? I get it. But he's the best shot I've got. Say what you like, the guy can punch out a hanger at three hundred yards."

Vorhees wasn't aware that he'd been thinking about Tifty at all. But now that Cruk had brought the subject up, he wondered if maybe he was.

"So you think we'll need him."

Cruk shrugged. "Summer day like this, we'll have no problems. I'm just being careful is all. They're my girls too, you know." He broke the mood with a grin. "Just so long as Dee doesn't make a habit of this. I had to call in about fifty favors to put this little party together, and you can tell her I said so."

The bus drew into the staging area. The last of the sweepers were emerging from the corn, dressed in their bulky pads and heavy gloves and helmets with cages obscuring their faces. An assortment of weapons hung off their persons: shotguns, rifles, pistols, even a few machetes. Cruk instructed the children to remain where they were; only when the all clear was given would they be permitted to exit the bus. As the adults began carting out the supplies, Tifty descended from the platform on the bus's roof, rendezvousing with Cruk at the rear to confer with the DS officer in charge of the sweeping squad, a man named Dillon. The rest of Dillon's team, eight men and four women, had gone to take water from the trough by the pump house.

Cruk strode back to where Vorhees was waiting with the rest of the men. Already the sun was blazing; the morning's humidity had burned away.

"Clean as a whistle-the windbreaks, too." He shot Vorhees a wink. "That'll cost Dee extra."

Before Cruk could even finish making the announcement, the children were bolting from their seats and streaming off the bus, clearing space for the sweepers, who would return to the city. Watching the children as they fanned over the grounds, their bodies and faces lit with excitement, Vorhees was momentarily transfixed, his mind caught in a tide of memory. For many, the youngest especially, the day's excursion represented their first trip beyond the walls; he'd known this from the start. Yet to witness the moment was something else. Did the air feel different in their lungs, he wondered, the sun on their faces, the ground beneath their feet? Had these things felt different to him, stepping from the transport the first time, all those years ago? And of course they had: to go ex-murus was to discover a world of limitless dimensions-a world you knew existed but had never believed yourself to be a part of. He recalled the sensation as a kind of weightless physical joy, but frightening too, like a dream in which he had been given the gift of flight but found himself unable to land.

By the watchtower, Fort and Chess were sinking poles to erect a sunshade; the women were toting out the tables and chairs and hampers of food. Ali Dodd, her face shaded beneath the brim of her wide straw hat, was already trying to organize some of the children into a game of takeaway. All just as Dee had foreseen when she'd broached the subject of bringing the children along.

"It's something, isn't it?"

Vorhees's cousin, Ty, was standing beside him, holding a hamper to his chest. Over six feet, with a narrow, mournful face, he always reminded Vorhees of a particularly sad-looking dog. Behind them, Dar gave three beeps of the horn; with a belch of oily smoke, the bus pulled away.

"I ever tell you about my first time out?"

"I don't think so."

"Trust me," Ty said, shaking his head in a way that told Vorhees the man had no intention of elaborating. "That's a story."

When everything had been unloaded, Cruk called the children under the tarp to review the rules, which everybody already knew. The first thing, Cruk began, was that everyone needed a buddy. Your buddy could be anyone, a brother or sister or friend, but you had to have one, and you had to stay with your buddy at all times. That was the most important thing. The open ground at the base of the watchtower was safe, within those boundaries they could go wherever they liked, but they were not to venture into the corn under any circumstances; the stand of trees at the south end was also off-limits.

Now, do you see those flags? Cruk asked, gesturing over the field. The orange ones, hanging down like that? Who can tell me what those are?

Half a dozen hands went up; Cruk's eyes roamed the group before landing on Dash Martinez. Seven years old, all knees and elbows, with a mop of dark hair; under the beam of Cruk's attention, he froze. He was seated between Merry Dodd and Reese Cuomo, who were covering their mouths, trying not to laugh. The hardboxes? the boy ventured. That's right, Cruk replied, nodding. Those are the hardboxes. Now tell me, he continued, addressing all of them, if the siren goes off, what should you do?

Run! someone said, then another and another. Run!

"Run where?" Cruk asked.

A chorus of voices this time: Run to the hardboxes!

He relaxed into a smile. "Good. Now go have fun."

They darted away, all except the teenagers, who lingered an extra moment by the awning, seeking to separate themselves from the younger children. But even they, Vorhees knew, would find their way into the sunshine. The playing cards came out, and skeins of yarn for knitting; before long, the women were all occupying themselves, watching the children from the shade, fanning their faces in the heat. Vorhees called the men around to hand out salt tablets; even drinking constantly, a man working in this heat could become dangerously dehydrated. They filled their bottles at the pump. There was no need to explain the task before them; detassling was a grueling if simple job they had all done many times. For every three rows of corn, a fourth row had been planted of a second strain. That row would be stripped of its tassles to prevent self-pollination; come harvesttime, it would produce a new, crossbred strain, more vigorous, to be used as seed corn for the following year. When Vorhees's father had first explained this process to him, years ago, it had seemed exciting, even vaguely erotic. What they were doing was, after all, part of the reproductive process, even if it was only corn. But the physical discomforts of the job-the hours in the grueling sun, the ceaseless rain of pollen on his hands and face, the insects that buzzed around his head, seeking any opportunity to bore into his ears and nose and mouth-had quickly disabused him of this notion. His first week in the field, one man had collapsed from heat stroke. Vorhees couldn't recall who that was or what had become of him; they'd put him on the next transport and gotten back to work. It was entirely possible the man had died.

Heavy canvas gloves and wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts buttoned to the wrists: by the time the men were ready to go, they were sweating profusely. Vorhees cast his gaze to the top of the watchtower, where Tifty had taken his position, scanning the tree line with his scope. Cruk was right; Tifty was the man to have up there. Whatever else was true about Tifty Lamont, his skills as a marksman were inarguable. Yet even to hear the man's name spoken, so many years later, aroused in Vorhees a fresh turning of anger. If anything, the passage of time had only magnified this feeling; each year that slipped past was one more year of Boz's unlived life. Why should Tifty grow to be a man when Boz had not? In more circumspect moments, Vorhees understood his emotions to be irrational; Tifty might have been the instigator on that fateful night, but any one of them could have said no, and Boz would be alive. Yet no matter what Dee said, or Cruk, or Tifty himself-who even now, sweeping the tree line with his rifle, was offering a silent promise to protect Vorhees's children-nothing could dissuade Vorhees from the belief that Tifty bore a singular blame. In the end, he was forced to accept his feelings as a failure of his own character and keep them to himself.

He divided the workers into three teams, each responsible for four rows. Then they made their way to the shelter to say their goodbyes. A game of kickball was under way in the field; from the far side of the watchtower came the ring of horseshoes in the pit. Dee was resting in the shade with Sally and Lucy Martinez, playing a round of hearts. Their games were epic, sometimes lasting for days.

"Looks like we're ready to go."

She lay down her cards, lifting her face toward him. "Come here."